ABSTRACT
This chapter describes that economic management is intimately related to other state policies in a mixed economy, particularly to social welfare, because a declining economy will generate a wide range of social problems. It analyses of economic performance and macro-economic policy to countries in Central and Eastern Europe which have recently adopted parliamentary democracy and simultaneously developed market economies. Welfare and economy are intimately related because the welfare system deals with casualties of the economy the injured, sick, the old and the unemployed. In the early post-war years most Western European states adopted Keynesian policies of economic management. Political parties across the whole of Europe are divided on the issues of state intervention in the economy and the scope of the welfare state. The impact of public management strategies in these mixed economies must be considered in explaining their varying success in adapting change. The chapter shows that it is not possible to separate out economic policies from politics.
